Foxconn to allow union ? but will it be independent?

After a series of disastrous worker accidents, suicides and walk-offs, Taiwanese-owned electronic manufacturer Foxconn agreed to inspections by the international Fair Labor Association. Foxconn was essentially forced to accept the FLA after its major customer, Apple, accepted responsibility at the plants which produce its products.

Now, nearly a year later, Foxconn has agreed to what appear to be company-wide union elections. It's uncertain whether all of Foxconn's 1.2 million workers will participate. Moreover, these unions, unlike previous paper unions, are supposed to be free of management control. The problem right now is that "Since the unions have so far had no real role in addressing worker grievances and have been dominated by management, most young workers know nothing about what a real labour union is supposed to do."

According to news reports, right after the upcoming new year break, Foxconn, assisted by the FLA, will begin training workers on how unions work and how to choose representatives. According to CNN, "They will be choosing up to 18,000 union committees whose terms expire this year and in 2014, according to three people familiar with the situation."

Foxconn told the Financial Times that this is a permanent move:

"The position of chairman and 20 committee members of the Foxconn Federation of Labour Unions Committee will be determined through elections once every five years through an anonymous ballot voting process."

However, there remain skeptics. The same Financial Times, in an unsigned editorial, said that "Foxconn's offer reveals less about the development of workers' rights in China than it does about the pragmatism of Communist party leaders when faced with the social pressures of urbanization, labour shortages and a slower economy."

For the workers at Foxconn, though, the acquisition of union rights and work rules is a potentially major achievement - no matter how they're gained.

China labor support groups have so far withheld comment, possibly caught off guard by the announcement. But Paul Garver, who blogs on international labor issues for Talking Union and specializes in China, voiced a wait and see attitude.

"Considering that pressure for this action came from outside, and not from the workers themselves, this may restrict the union. It's not terribly likely that this will result in a union run by rank-and-file workers. In part because there is no history of this in modern China, and because the Communist Party, despite allowing elections, doesn't really permit independent power bases.

"The most recent precedent isn't terribly encouraging. When workers at the CHAM Honda auto parts plant in China struck in 2010, they won the right to  a union election. But in the end only one rank-and-file worker associated with the strike was elected to the central union committee. All the major union officers have ties to management, and were selected in a complicated process heavily controlled by the Party, which resulted in only 16 delegates vying for 15 seats.

There's a particular irony in this story for U.S. workers. No Apple facilities in this country are unionized. In fact, in 2011, Apple began training some of its retail store managers in "union awareness." Apple needs a policy of non-interference when its workers choose to organize, or perhaps it's time to call in the Fair Labor Association.

Foxconn plans Chinese union vote (CNN, Feb. 4, 2013)

Foxconn's unions: Free vote will help to preserve stability and party's power (Financial Times, Feb. 4, 2013)

Talking Union (website)

Apple to train managers on 'union awareness' (Nov. 7, 2011)